


John Doe

by MathConcepts



Series: BackChannels [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Awkward Sexual Situations, Description of Medical Injuries, Dialogue Heavy, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone has to confront morality, F/M, Female pronouns for Michael, Hastur goes off the rails at one point, Heavy Angst, Human! Ligur, In Certain Places, Jealousy, Learning domestic things, M/M, Making 50 percent of the Effort, Mention of enemies to friends to lovers, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, Other, Polyamory, Remember Ligur is Human Now, Some Humor, Some domestic fluff, The disposable demon is Legion, making the effort, more tags will be added as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-07-26 03:49:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20037424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathConcepts/pseuds/MathConcepts
Summary: Weeks after the apocalypse, Hastur begins a temptation, and in a miraculous coincidence, he discovers an injured man that he recognizes as his late partner, Ligur, who has been reembodied as a human when Adam reset humanity. Hastur seeks help from the most unlikely of sources to care for him, and mysteries and danger arise.





	1. John Doe

The hospital was dark and silent at this time of night, not many people were about besides the night shift nurses and one or two harried doctors in the emergency ward. Which suited Hastur just fine. He preferred to work, and lurk from the shadows, up front confrontations were not his forte. The last direct confrontation Hastur had engaged in had ended in disaster and left him devoid of a partner, and so he was alone on his current venture.  
  
The duke's latest target was a surgeon, this surgeon was scheduled to operate on an ailing priest, but if the surgeon could be persuaded to be...sloppy, the priest would die. And without their devout leader, the parishioners of the priest's church would soon turn astray. It was a complex plan, and Hastur was proud of it. Though, if one knew Hastur, one might say that the plan was _too_ complex.   
  
But beneath Hastur's atrocious wig and even more atrocious personality, he possessed a sharp mind. Granted, one that he did not use at full capacity very often, but one nonetheless.  
Although, it is also important to note that humans often immerse themselves in their work to avoid their sorrows, and perhaps demons may share the same trait, because it was doubtful that Hastur would have conceived such an elaborate plan two weeks prior, while Ligur still lived.  
  
  
The surgeon was due in early morning for the operation, but Hastur, who was fastidious when it came to timing and schedules,***** had arrived at the hospital with time to spare, and was now killing it by lurking around the various wards. No one noticed him, not that he would have permitted it. It was a precaution against unwanted interactions and _confrontations_. But the sterile gloom of the hospital increased as he stalked down the empty halls, and dozens of nasty inconveniences began to sprout among the hospital's occupants. Bedpans filled too quickly, intravenous lines failed to dispense the necessary painkiller, benign growths became something more insidious, and dreams which had otherwise been sweet were now the complete opposite.  
  
Misery loves company, after all, and there was no one more miserable in that hospital than Hastur, Duke of Hell.   
  
Time wore on, and so did the night. Dawn would come in a few hours, and Hastur directed his pacing towards the operating room. He planned to linger there for the remaining hours until the morning, setting the stage for the act of evil that would be his finale. Or, at least that's what he would have done, had it not been for one defining incident.  
  
Still unseen, Hastur was walking down the long hall that led to the OR, keeping close against the wall. His only forewarning was a creak of hinges, and then he was suddenly stumbling backwards as a door swung open, nearly colliding with his face.   
  
Hastur hissed, watching as a young nurse hurried out of the room, shutting the door with their foot, as they were carrying a tray of medical supplies, mostly gauzes and creams, although Hastur was oblivious to what they were, or their uses. The nurse was gone before Hastur could take any action against them, oh, Hastur could cause an accident of a striking nature to befall them from afar, but causing a nurse to drop inexplicably dead in a hospital might just cause more problems than it was worth. Humans weren't demons after all, you couldn't just discorporate them and be done with it. No, humans loved to kick up a fuss about everything, especially other dead humans, and this would be no exception.  
  
Hastur continued on his way, passing by the door that the nurse had left slightly ajar in their hurry. What was behind that door did not matter to Hastur in the slightest, and would never have mattered if he hadn't heard the cough. It wasn't a loud cough, it was muffled and raspy, and faintly wheezing, but it reached Hastur's ears. The cough was inconsequential, it was the sound of it that mattered. Each person has their own unique way of coughing, and if one person is around another for enough time, they will learn it.  
  
Stepping back, Hastur grabbed the doorknob and jerked the door open, stepping into the room. It was unlit, and the window was covered with the heavy, standard drapes found in most hospitals. Rather than fumble in search of the light switch, Hastur manifested a glowing ball of hellfire in the palm of his hand. His entrance into the room was completely impulsive, he didn't expect to find anything but a sick human. Still, the cough echoed in his mind, almost teasing in its repetitiveness.  
  
Growling, he stepped up to the bed that was the focus of the room, holding his hand above his head and letting the glow from the fire spill down on the person occupying it. The man on the bed was sleeping, but he turned his head away in a universal instinct, shying from the light of fire as it illuminated his dark skin and the swath of snowy bandages that were spread across the side of his face.  
  
Hastur gasped, clenching his fist, and extinguishing the fire. The man, his face...the nose, the curve of the jaw and the close cropped hair...were Ligur's. It was Ligur. Even half covered in bandages, Hastur knew that face.   
  
But it could not be Ligur. This man was not a demon, he was a _man_. Demons could smell, sense other demons, and there had been no scent of sulfur, no tingle in the solar plexus that was the feel of another demon. The man on the bed was human, through and through. Hastur grunted, squeezing his eyes shut and reaching out over space and electrons, reaching for the man's mind. He met nothing. Humans' minds were always full, always thinking, always working, even in sleep. It was always so easy for any demon to slip unholy thoughts among the thousands that already resided in the common person's brain. But this man's...Ligur...no, this man's mind was empty. There was no bright spaces, or dark ones. Just emptiness, and white, so much white, like the sterile Heaven that Hastur hardly remembered. And there was certainly not murky dusk of Ligur's thoughts.  
  
Hastur pulled back, the hand that had sprang the hellfire clenching and unclenching in spasmodic way, which was all Hastur could do to keep it from trembling. He_ was_ trembling, his body shaking all over. This was impossible, unprecedented, horrific. Yes, horrific. Not many things could shake a demon, but of the few things, Ligur's death had been one of those things**.*** But his reappearance here, in this hospital, this bed, was somehow even worse. Because that was not Ligur. How could it be? Hastur backed away from the bed, his eyes falling on the clipboard attached to the bed's railing. JOHN DOE was printed in neat, blocky letters on the top of the papers the clipboard held. Hastur tore the clipboard from the railing, staring down at it.  
  
The information on the papers made hardly no sense to Hastur, and he didn't waste time in trying to decipher them. Holding the clipboard in a crushing grip, he bolted from the room, but once outside the door, staggered against the wall. He held up his hand, allowing flames to spring from his palm and trickle down his wrist, quickly encasing him**.* **And then he was back, back in Hell, pushing through the masses of shuffling bodies to get to a desk that had once been Ligur's. The phone that had been Ligur's was still on the desk, he picked it up and put it to his ear, not bothering to dial a number. In the years since it had been installed, the phone had only called, or received calls from one solitary number. It knew what to do.  
  
There was crackle of static, then a voice, overly prim and composed, answered. "Who is this?" it began.  
  
"He's here," Hastur croaked, "he's back."  
  
For all the years spent with Ligur as her dirty little secret, Michael knew Ligur's voice quite well. But she also knew Hastur's just as well. The seemingly foreboding statement Hastur had just delivered would have raised alarms in anyone else, for her, it only raised concern. "_Who_ is back?" she asked, her mind flitting to scenarios and theories, some outlandish, some probable, but none as jarring as Hastur's next word was.  
  
_"Ligur." _  
  
  
  
  


* * *

*** **Hastur is canonically a stickler for following a schedule.**  
  
*** Of the few things that can shake a demon, the major ones are, God, Beelzebub, Holy Water and Satan. In that order.  
  
***** Hellfire seems to be able to be used as floo powder/teleportation device. Hastur used it to disappear from the Bentley when Crowley drove it into the M25.


	2. The Door

Michael's fingers were taut around the casing of her phone. She had sequestered herself in a remote corner to take the call, and without anyone to witness it, she allowed an expression of consternation to flit across her face.  
  
Ligur.  
  
"_He's back._" Hastur had said. But he wasn't, Michael knew much, much better than to believe that for an instant. It was just a cruel jest of Hastur's, a jab made in a fit of demonic spite. Hastur so did love to rile her up, it had been one of the defining traits of their...association. However, Michael did not appreciate that trait at this time.  
  
"If this is your idea of a joke," she began tersely, as a warning. If it was a joke, which it most likely was, she _would_ go to whatever godforsaken corner of hell Hastur was presently in and smite him, so _help her God_...Hastur's voice broke through the phone's speakers, more a snarl than actual words.  
  
No, no no! It wasn't a joke. Hastur hated jokes, he never understood them. And Michael, serene, composed Michael, never _ever_ listened. "I'm not joking! He's here, there, up on earth. I found im', it isn't him, it's a man, but it's him, he looks just like-"  
  
"A man?" Michael's incredulous voice sliced through Hastur's agitated rambling. "What in the Lord's name are you talking about?" Ligur was, or had been a demon. It was a fact that Michael was all too acutely aware of. So Hastur's half-hysterical proclamation made no sense.  
  
"He's human!" Hastur shrieked, causing Michael to hold her phone back from her ear. "I can't feel him at all!" Michael did not know how to respond to this. When a demon went under holy water, that demon died, truly and irrevocably. They did not return, to Hell or Earth. Whatever Hastur was saying was a ruse, an exploration of his limited but depraved imagination, now that his one bulkhead had been melted away.   
  
"You're lying." Michael finally said.  
  
  
The accusation rankled Hastur. He was agitated and shock-ridden as it was, and now was smarting in the wake of Michael's dismissive assumption. But he kept his temper down by pure force, it wasn't wise to act irrational in Michael's presence. If he swore her out as he was now inclined to do, he would get nothing but a chilling radio silence until Michael was inclined to forgive his outburst, and though he hated the very notion, he needed her _help now._ "Come up here, come see."  
  
Michael was on the verge of coldly refusing, but something in Hastur's voice, that could not be classified as pleading, yet still somehow was, altered her decision. There was no pressing need for her to be in Heaven at the moment, she wouldn't be missed if she went. And at the very least, she could teach Hastur a lesson he wouldn't soon forget for so callously digging into her well-bandaged, but still quite raw emotions.  
  
"I'll come. Where is...he?"

* * *

  
  
They met at the hospital, on the wide stretch of lawn at the front of the main building. It was still dark, the darkest part of the night before dawn, in fact. Michael smelled Hastur immediately, the familiar scent of dirt, cigarette ash, and mildew that was distinctly him.  
  
She pulled a light from nowhere, searching his face in its beam. He was the same as he could be, covered in grime and ooze, his fake hair haphazardly set atop the creature on his head. But his black eyes were bright, too bright and too telling for eyes that were nothing more than literal inky pools. Michael had more than once entertained the notion of sticking an old-fashioned pen into those eyes, half convinced she'd be able to write with it once she pulled it out. _He wasn't lying_, Michael realized. At first glance, Hastur seemed normal, at a second...it was clear that he was not. In addition to the the shining eyes, she saw the tenseness in his posture, the way his breath shook his frame, he was _disturbed._  
  
Michael's first instinct was to question him, but she ignored it. "Well then, show me the man." Michael said, keeping her voice perfectly nonchalant. Now that she had decided that Hastur _was_ being truthful, it was perhaps better to plunge into the situation headfirst than to try to unravel it from the outside.  
  
"Turn that off." Hastur mumbled irritably, and the light vanished. He reached forward to take her wrist, and Michael could feel the tremble in his fingers as they closed around her sleeve. _Peculiar._  
  
He pulled her forward with urgency, and she went with him, across the lawn and into the building. From above, if anyone had been watching, they would have looked like two children, linked together and off on some venture that was being undertaken under the radar of authority.  
  
To Michael and Hastur, it certainly felt that way. The present situation was outside of Hastur's purview, and he intended to willingly defer to Michael's aid, whatever came next. Michael was anticipating the unknown, or perhaps the once-known that lay beyond in the hospital.  
  
It wasn't until Hastur had entered the hospital that he remembered that he had something of importance to contribute. He stopped short in a corridor, causing Michael halt abruptly with him. She raised a questioning brow, and Hastur offered the clipboard he had kept tucked under his arm up until this moment. "Found this on his bed." he explained as Michael took the plastic device and began in skim the top sheet. "It says John Doe, but that's not Lig- not his name."  
  
"They wouldn't know his name." Michael said, her eyes focusing in on a string of words typed in on the lower half of the sheet. Both she and Hastur had done their fair share of paperwork over the many, many years, but this paper had terms she was not familiar with, as hospitals and all corresponding paperwork thereof were not necessarily a thing angels or demons had much experience in.   
  
"They made one up for him, then?" Hastur sounded vaguely indignant, and it was with an amused look that Michael handed back over the clipboard.   
  
"So it would seem." she replied. Hastur resumed walking, taking back Michael's wrist. His fingers had steadied, she noticed, and she didn't pull away. "If it is him, what would he be doing here? Hospitals are for humans that are injured." Hastur shrugged, turning down another long corridor before he spoke.  
  
"He was injured," Hastur said darkly, shooting her a mild glare. "He had bandages and such." It was not a answer she had wanted to hear. She had reconciled herself to the memory of Ligur alive and well, and the reality of him dead. Injured, and if one took Hastur's words as credible, _human_, he posed a new option, a door to an in-between place of unexplored territory.   
  
Hastur passed through the halls as unnoticed as before with his companion, winding up before the room he had fled from a short time prior. But although unseen, they weren't alone. Hastur opened the door with a motion and went in, pausing when he saw the other figure in the room. It was the nurse, the one he had encountered earlier, recognizable by the bright pattern on their loose clothes. The nurse was bent over the bed, hands working busily over and around Ligur's face. Hastur took a step forward, this heavy boots clunking against the polished floor, and startled, the nurse turned and froze.  
  
Michael, sensing that Hastur's intentions did not bode well for the nurse, had incapacitated them before Hastur was moved to further action. She stepped past Hastur and the inert form of the nurse, coming to the side of the bed.  
  
Slowly, and ever so gently, she raised her hand and let her fingers come down on Ligur's face. The nurse had removed the bandages, and Michael's fingertips touched raw, red flesh. The feeling of it was unsettling, so unlike Ligur's usually smooth skin. Ligur, yes, this was _Ligur_, the part of the face that was not mutilated betrayed it, the nose, the brow, the curve of the cheek...Michael felt her throat tighten, a craving for air that she didn't need. Her hand dropped to the bed's railing and clenched around it. "It's him." she said, her eyes wandering to the far side of the room, blankly roving over the curtained window, searching for anything to keep her from looking back down at Ligur. "You're right, he's injured."   
  
Hastur came up behind her, looking over her shoulder, making a guttural sound when he saw the state of the uncovered flesh. "It was the holy water." he said hoarsely. "It went down all over his face."_   
  
That_ forced Michael's eyes back down. Holy water. Of course. Holy water scalded, melted, and Ligur's injury was consistent with those properties. A thin blanket was drawn to Ligur's chin, but Michael could see that a trail of likewise ruined skin spread down his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of the white garment he was wearing.  
  
And there was no smell. Ligur smelled of cigarette ash, wet wood, and decaying fruit, a close match to Hastur, but unique. Now there was nothing but the smell of washed linen and the thump of a heartbeat.   
  
Michael reached out again, settling her hand over the spot on Ligur's chest where the heart beat under. She searched, traveling under skin, through bone and veins, looking for the stamp, the darkness that bound a demon together at the very seams. It was a quality that set a demon apart, that was intertwined into their very being. But there was nothing. Just flesh, and bone and blood, and a heart that beat in a steady rhythm.   
  
He was human, as human as the nurse, as human as any human who had ever lived. She withdrew her hand and curled it into a fist, turning to face Hastur. "Well?" he demanded. He was expecting...something. A reassurance, an explanation? But Michael had neither.  
  
That door was swinging open, waiting for her, for _them_ to step through.


	3. Not Acid

Hastur had no head for introspection, so his thoughts were hardly running along the same lines as Michael's. He certainly wasn't thinking of doors. Michael had confirmed that it was Ligur in that bed, still and wounded and _human_. If there was any speculation to be had from him, it would be on that. "Well?" he asked again, if only to break the silence. Michael wordlessly shook her head and moved past him, back towards the motionless nurse.  
  
"He's in a human facility, the human might be able to give us information." Michael said. It was a ploy to avoid Hastur's questions, but Michael got the answers to a number of things, whether or not it was intentional.  
  
She and Hastur were in the burn ward of the hospital, and the man laying on the bed was a John Doe the police had brought in two weeks prior. He was suffering from third degree burns, burns that seemed to have been made by some unidentifiable acid. Hastur had went off into a fit of rather shrill laughter at that, although he had only a vague idea of what acid actually was.  
  
Michael probed the last bits of information from the nurse, such as what a John Doe was; an unidentifiable person, and the severity of the burns; the burns _were_ severe, but not fatal, although they would leave behind permanent scarring. The nurse had been treating Ligur's face with various medical creams and replacing the bandaging, before Michael and Hastur had intruded. "Carry on, then." Michael ordered, directing the nurse back to Ligur with a wave. The nurse went back to their ministrations, and Michael prodded Hastur into a corner to to talk to him. "This is an unprecedented situation." Michael began.  
  
"No shit." Hastur deadpanned, and Michael leveled a vaguely unimpressed look at him, wondering where he had picked up that rather modern turn of phrase. But it was of no import. "I'm not speaking lightly. Things like this don't just happen." she went on. And they didn't. Demons did not _come back._ Once killed, they didn't come back...or did they? Humans died, and went to either Heaven, or Hell, or the shadowy dimension inbetween that constituted Purgatory. When demons died...where did they go? Or would go if they were able to? It was a thought that Michael, and certainly not Hastur had ever considered, never before having a cause to consider it.   
  
But now they did. And it was proving to be rather a strain on their already taxed minds. Or at least to Michael's, who was the one doing the brunt of the consideration, however, she shunted the thought to a remote corner of her mind, and focused back on Hastur, who was beginning to get twitchy. "I'll have to look into it." she said tersely. "There is no record of a demon...something like this happening, you know."  
  
"I know." Hastur said, almost accusingly. Michael's eyes narrowed minimally, wondering if he was attempting to insinuate something, but he went on, his tone suddenly heavy. "Demons get turned to _nothin' _when they die."  
  
Oh. _Oh._ She wasn't poking _that_ hornet's nest. Not yet.  
  
"We have to decide what to do next." Michael said, and regretted the word _we_ as soon as it had left her mouth. She should have said _I_, should have moved the situation within her jurisdiction. But it was too late. Hastur, as usual, began making a mountain out of the already gigantic molehill that was the current situation.  
  
"I'm taking him with me." Hastur announced. Michael couldn't stop the chuckle that left her mouth, it slipped out, derisive and grating, more suited to Hastur than her. "Take him with you? Where, down there?"  
  
It was an impulsive decision on Hastur's part, Michael had said _we,_ and Hastur had been seized by the sudden impulse to separate himself from the daunting word. And after all, it only made sense, Ligur belonged down there, he was a demon...no, not a demon any longer, a fact which Michael was all to quick to point out.   
  
"He's human. There are rules for humans, you can't just take him to Hell."  
  
"But he should be down there, he's one of us." Hastur protested.  
  
"He's human." Michael repeated firmly. "And what would your superiors think if you brought a human down, and claimed he was a demon back from the dead?" Hastur's sudden silence let on that his superiors would not think kindly of it. "Well then." Michael went on, her tone a deliberate infliction of I-told-you-so.  
  
Hastur snorted. "You won't able to take him up to Hea- up there either." he said. Michael frowned, it was a shoddy retort, and they both knew it. Although, Hastur was right, and so was she. In his current state Ligur would receive less then a warm welcome in Hell, and Heaven wasn't an option even in thought.  
  
"He'll have to stay here on Earth, until we can..." Michael's words trailed off. Until they did what? Michael had plans - dim plans in the back of her head, concerning research and the acquisition of knowledge, after all, she needed to know what she was dealing with, but anything more concrete than that was out of her reach. She shook her head. "Until he recovers." she amended.  
  
"He'll...recover?...Get better?" Hastur stumbled over his words, lacking the proper jargon for the situation. Anyone else would have only noted a superfluous ignorance, but Michael could sense the frantic undertone to Hastur's words.  
  
"The human said that he will." If Michael's voice was a tone softer than it had been seconds before, neither she nor Hastur noticed.   
  
"Couldn't you-" Hastur started, but Michael held her hand up, cutting him off.  
  
"Miracles are out of the question. They are recorded, and if someone were to chance upon my file-"  
  
"You're the only one that has access to your file." Hastur interrupted. In the early days of Michael's acquaintance with two particular demons, she had become rather_ interested_ in Heaven's bookkeeping, and all the files and records thereof, in a way she had not been formerly. Her interest spanned beyond the correct filing of paperwork, and leaked into the Earth Observation files and miracle ledgers.   
  
Her own files, which had all been complied and updated by her, and her alone, were pristine, and free of any telling marks. But in her pocket, alongside her phone, was a slim, tiny chip that carried the uncensored files.  
  
Hastur knew this, because both he and Ligur appreciated a good bit of sneakiness, and once, while in a strikingly good mood, Michael had boasted of her own. And knowing this, Michael's objection to miracles was absurd to him.  
  
Michael's hand went to her pocket, her fingertips brushing the tiny data carrier through the soft fabric. "I'm not taking any chances." she said firmly. "No miracles. He's human, he heals the human way."  
  
It was times like these that made Hastur wonder if Michael could conceivably be just the slightest bit paranoid. Which was laughable, coming from him, but Hastur was too much of a simple soul to grasp that irony.  
  
Michael on the other hand, was a calculating old soul, who preferred to look and plan ahead. Her rejection of aiding Ligur's recovery was due to speculations on what could happen should they be discovered, and the consequences that could befall them all. That, and the fact that she was indeed paranoid.  
  
"The humans here are trained to tend other humans, we'll leave him here until the worst of the damage is healed. Then, we'll take him." she continued.   
  
Hastur shot a look at the still form on the bed. "Take him where? He got' nowhere to go."  
  
Michael's long fingers moved to tap against the screen of her phone, a familiar tick that occurred when she was intensely thinking. Hastur waited. "We're going to hide him here, among all the humans. If he lives as one, no one but ourselves will know who he is." Michael said finally.  
  
Hastur took a moment to consider this. "Human," he said, his face bunching up in a dubious expression. "He'll need human...things if he's going to live as one."  
  
"While he recovers, we'll construct a place suitable for him to live in." Hastur looked at her, doubtfulness bleeding across his features. Besides preliminary matters, neither one of them knew anything of import about humans and their ways. Which begged the question, how exactly were they to do what Michael was proposing?  
  
"We'll need an expert in human affairs." Michael replied, who knew Hastur well enough to read that unspoken thought. There were precisely two people that they knew of that could be classified thusly, but association with those two was something that was as out of the question as the moon was from the Earth.   
  
Michael could be more pragmatic when so inclined, but she hardly could expect Hastur to work willingly with the murderer of their...partner.  
  
But Hastur surprised her when his features shifted ocne again, into something bordering on resolve. "I know someone." he said.   
  
  
  
  



End file.
